This comprehensive volume celebrates the 150th anniversary of the 1855 edition of Walt Whitman s Leaves of Grass with twenty essays by preeminent scholars representing a variety of critical perspectives that focus exclusively on the original edition. Once regarded as primarily a collector s item, this edition is now viewed as the poet s most bold and compelling articulation of the possibilities of American democracy.The essays weave a rich tapestry of the most current, innovative criticism on this foundational book of American poetry. The contributors treat Whitman s poetry, his...